


The Blue Lady

by theyalwayssay



Category: Doctor Who, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Victorian, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-21
Updated: 2013-08-21
Packaged: 2017-12-24 04:19:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/935252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theyalwayssay/pseuds/theyalwayssay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The mysterious family at Maiden's Point.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Blue Lady

The neighbors in the little town of Maiden’s Point were quite unsure about the big blue house at the end of the road. Not that they would ever speak ill of the little family that lived there. Perhaps it was the garish shade of blue that the house was painted, or perhaps it was the constant stream of children flocking the house to try and see inside, leaving muddy fingerprints on the white trim that ringed the grand entrance. Or perhaps it was simply the pretext of the family who owned it. The wife was said to be a wily woman with a lion’s mane for hair and a history of courting sailors down by the dock, frequently seen in a corset with nails the colour of blood and a smile that said that she was more that happy to kill a man as soon as she might love him. Another thought that perhaps she had once lived in a far off place such as Africa or South America, and still carried a portion of the native, wild upbringing in her behavior. She was cordial, certainly, walking through the promenade with her daughter Amelia, done up in white and yellow and blue, doing such things as catching butterflies and picking flowers, a think that ladies of her age and stature were wont to avoid.

Although, perhaps the most peculiar of all was the husband. He was a traveler by nature, and purportedly a doctor of everything, and left early in the morning before most of the sleepy village was awake, done up in a top hat and bow tie and carriageing away by dawn, a fact only discovered by the village gossips, who would eagerly tell the town when the mysterious wife was once again the woman alone of the blue house. But the man would always return, a youthful smile on his face as he carried great treasures from faraway lands into the manor, creating an interior that looked more of a museum than a home. The children with the muddy hands would flock to the windows, attempting to see inside the great blue house and the riches that lay inside, but the blue curtains of the Blue Manor were always closed to them save one.

“Mummy!” Amelia called, having pulled open the door. While the brass door handle was normally just out of reach for the young girl, she had taken the initiative to throw a loop of rope around it so that it might be turned and pulled open even for one of so small a stature such as hers. “It’s Hamish! Can he come in?”

“Yes, dear,” called the infamous woman of Blue Manor, at the moment sitting complacently by the fire with a leather-bound journal sitting on the table at her elbow, along with a pot of tea and a glittering black fountain pen. While the Blue Lady, as she was known in the village, for her history was so long and colourful that her abundance of names was simplified down to the colour over which she now presided, was not often one for taking in children. However, Hamish, the small son of the noted scientist and reclusive detective with almost as many stories to his name as she herself, had accompanied them on so many of their summer promenades and been so apt to be clever and astute that she felt she had no choice in letting him more fully into their lives. Besides, while the village had rumoured that the Blue Lady was cold-hearted enough to kill a man who had wronged her family in cold blood beneath the Maiden’s Point pier, her heart was not nearly as cold as the sharp February frost that had crept its cold fingers under the skirt of almost spring, creating a crunch of life soon to be reborn and a lusty wind that nipped at the necks and cheeks of the villagers. And at the moment, the child Hamish was standing in said frost, his red nose buried in a long red scarf that trailed on the ground while his dark hair poked out haphazardly from the brim of a much-too-large hat that occasionally slipped down over his ears and leaving his bright eyes to peer out at the world like a mole nestled in its burrow for the winter.

The little boy bounded into the dark paneled wood entrance way, unraveling his coat and standing on his toes to hang it on the lowest rung of the coat rack carved from the single trunk of a baobab tree.

“Has the Doctor come back yet, Miss?” Hamish asked the Blue Lady, rocking backward and forward on his little feet, his hands clasped behind his back.

“Not yet, dear,” River said, glancing out at the snow-covered back garden.

“But it’s Saint Valentine’s Day!” Amelia cried.

“Now, darling, I never said he wouldn’t be back today. I’m merely stating that he’s not here yet,” River said, inclining her head towards her daughter. “You have plenty to do in the meantime before he returns, however. Amelia, did you ever show Hamish that new book that your father brought home for you?”

“No, I haven’t! Hamish, you have to come read it! Father got it for me ‘cos he thought the main character reminded him of your father. It’s all the way from London. He even got the author to write his name in it!”

The two children scrambled over to the burgundy carpet lying in the corner of the room, where a small bookcase held the volumes the Doctor had purchased especially for his daughter, the rest of the extensive collection of literature held in the manor’s library. Amelia pulled out the book and began to read the first story, a story of a detective. How apt that he should choose that for her, the Blue Lady thought with a smile. He always was determined that she grow up with more intellectual prowess than other women of her age. As the steady hum of Amelia’s voice and the crackling fire filled the room with a steady warm metronome, the Blue Lady continued her scrawl in the leather bound tome, her fountain pen adding a steady scratching to the melody of the winter day.

There was nothing to announce his arrival, only the sudden presence of a hand on her shoulder to indicate that there was someone standing behind her. The woman of the Blue manor turned around, smiling, to find the man of the Blue manor grinning back at her.

“You certainly have been gone much,” she said to him. “How was the traveling? It must have been difficult with the frost.”

“Hardly a challenge for the carriage. It has faced far worse on her travels,” the Doctor replied, smiling in that all-knowing way. This much was true, as evident by the holes created by bullets in the doors, and the scrapes and slashes on the sides that indicated the old vehicle had once come into contact with a sword, or some other like weapon of the Round Table.

“Daddy!” Amelia cried, pushing the book aside and running at the knees of her father, wrapping her arms tightly around his spindly legs and laughing. He laughed as well and picked her up, kissing her quickly on the forehead.

“Are you reading the book, love? Excellent, excellent. I expect you to be the perfect Sherlock Holmes when you are older! And Hamish,” the Doctor said, nodding at the little boy, “how do you do today?”

“I’m doing excellent, my good sir,” Hamish said, scrambling to his feet and doffing his cap, which promptly slid back over his ears after being returned to its rightful place.

“It is a pleasure to know of your contentedness,” the Doctor replied, setting Amelia down, after which she promptly returned to the burgundy carpet. “Oh,” he continued, a surprised look washing over his face, “I almost forgot…” and produced a bunch of sunflowers from behind his back.

The Blue Lady only smiled. She was more than used to her husband’s magic tricks. While they never ceased to amaze her, she had long abandoned giving him the satisfaction of knowing that every single one of his impossible feats only made her love him a little bit more. However, given the occasion, today might have to be an exception.

“A wonderful Saint Valentine’s Day to you, my love,” River said, reaching forward to kiss her husband.

“And an even more wonderful one to yourself, River Song,” the Doctor replied, smiling.

“Mummy and Daddy are doing the kissing thing again!” Amelia cried, reaching over and attempting to plant a great kiss on the pudgy face of Hamish that was not covered in hat.

“No!” he cried, attempting to squirm away from her. “Daddy doesn’t kiss anyone except for that Dr. Watson and I don’t want to kiss anybody either!”

River couldn’t help but turn around to look at the boy, who looked up at them with his great big blue eyes.

“Oh, no,” he said quietly. “I don’t think I was supposed to say that.”

“It’s nothing Maiden’s Point didn’t already guess, Hamish. Don’t fret over it,” River said, turning back to the book.

“Oh? And what are they about to guess this time, courtesy of the mind of the Blue Lady?” The Doctor asked, leaning over the side of his wife’s wingback chair.

“How about this? ‘The infamous Blue Lady finds herself the product of an American native and an Inuit of the far North. However, when pronouncing herself trapped in the confines of a sad, lonely continent bereft of culture, she travels to the far reaches of South Africa, upon which she finds the illustrious Doctor-without-name hunting in the brush. They enjoy a traditional wedding with the natives of the local village and return to his native England in the hope of improving societal standing and increasing the amount of human within the well-traveled family.’ Not one of my best, but personally I prefer this one to the rumour of me being the mistress of a fisherman unceremoniously left on the unfamiliar coast of London and not in her native Nova Scotia.”

“Your creativity never ceases to amaze me,” the Doctor replied, a gleam in his eye. “An entire book filled with stories about you, and yet you have yet to tell me which one is true whilst leaving the rest in the veils of fiction.”

“As you have yet to impress upon me the purpose and logistics of your travels,” she replied.

He only smiled. “A good magician never reveals his secrets.”

Outside, a light snow began to fall, the soft caress of the frozen tears of the sky softening the frigid heart of the frost. In a few days it would release its stranglehold on the young spring maiden. However, until that day, the sunflowers that came from nowhere and everywhere would sit in the dark wooden room, along with the relics of other bygone ages and priceless treasures of times yet discovered. The man and woman of a thousand tales would inhabit the Blue Manor for many years, and always the house would pass into the infamy of the coming generation, their old grandparents muddy fingers still leaving ghostly marks on the foggy windowpanes. After years, decades, worlds gone and dead and reborn again, the inhabitants of the blue house at the end of the street would always be an enigma, even to the inhabitants of that same old manor.


End file.
